The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862. Various
shapes were tolerable; but by the mass,
He's metamorphosed me into an ass!'
There is no hesitancy in pronouncing which of Suckling's poetic pieces should be called the best. It is the Ballad upon a Wedding. For ease and jocoseness of description it stands almost unapproachable. Of course, many other such productions may show equal fidelity to nature; and there is a small class of poems which may boast a vein of the same sparkling humor; but it would be difficult—we were ready to say impossible—to cite another instance of so exquisite a commingling of these two elements.
It requires a master-hand, it must be remembered, to harmonize these touches of playful fancy with what the poet is obliged to recognize as facts in nature. A tyro in the art is likely to transcend nature and alter a little things as he finds them, when he wishes to indulge in sportive recreation. Something well out of the common course must be laid hold on to excite that pleasant feeling of surprise which lies at the foundation of wit, if not of humor. Every one knows how much easier it is to call forth mirth by caricature than by simple truth; nor need it be added that while the former leaves but a momentary impression, the latter abides longer and seldom tires. Broad farce is rewarded by the tremendous applause of the gallery, but the pit and boxes confess to a deal more gratification in the quiet humor of an old comedy. This ballad displays all the vivacity and humor of light comedy, though we miss the virtue-inculcating moral at the close. We fear that we have already trespassed too far over the limits of a magazine article. We append only a part of this chef d'œuvre:
'I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,
Where I the rarest sights have seen;
Oh! things without compare!
Such sights again can not be found
In any place on English ground,
Be it at wake or fair.
'At Charing Cross, hard by the way
Where we (thou know'st) do sell our hay,
There is a house with stairs;
And there did I see coming down
Such folk as are not in our town,
Forty at least, in pairs.
'The maid, and thereby hangs a tale,
For such a maid no Whitsun'-ale
Could ever yet produce:
No grape that's kindly ripe could be
So round, so plump, so soft as she,
Nor half so full of juice.
'Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they feared the light:
But oh! she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight.
'Her cheeks, so rare a white was on,
No daisy makes comparison;
Who sees them is undone;
For streaks of red were mingled there.
Such as are on a Catherine pear,
The side that's next the sun.
'Her lips were red; and one was thin,
Compared to that was next her chin,
Some bee had stung it newly;
But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face,
I durst no more upon them gaze,
Than on the sun in July.
'Her mouth so small when she doth speak,
Thou'dst swear her teeth her words did break,
That they might passage get;
But she so handled still the matter,
They came as good as ours, or better,
And are not spent a whit.
'Passion, O me! how I run on;
There's that that would be thought upon,
I trow, beside the bride:
The business of the kitchen's great,
For it is fit that men should eat;
Nor was it there denied.
'Now hats fly off, and youths carouse;
Healths first go round, and then the house,
The bride's came thick and thick;
And when 'twas named another's health,
Perhaps he made it hers by stealth;
And who could help it, Dick?
'O' th' sudden up they rise and dance;
Then sit again and sigh and glance;
Then dance again and kiss.
Thus sev'ral ways the time did pass,
Till every woman wished her place,
And every man wished his.
'By this time all were stolen aside
To counsel and undress the bride;
But that he must not know—
But yet 'twas thought he guessed her mind,
And did not mean to stay behind
Above an hour or so.'
What can be finer than the verse commencing, 'Her feet beneath her petticoat,' or that which follows: 'Her cheeks,' etc.? That Suckling could write like this, proves that there was in him the dawning of no ordinary genius. He challenges our admiration, not so much for what he has done, as for what he might have done, had his life been spared. Or we should say, rather, what he might have done had he devoted half as much of the life that was granted him to literary labors, as he did to pleasure and dissipation.
TO JOHN BULL
I hear a voice you can not hear,
Which says it will not pay;
I see a hand you can not see,
Which motions t'other way.
The thumb is horizontalized,
The fingers perpendic'lar,
And scorn for you seems giving there
A motion quite partic'lar.
LONDON FOGS AND LONDON POOR
I first saw London on a morning late in November; or, it will be more correct to say that I should have seen it, if a dense fog had not concealed every thing that belonged to it, wharves, warehouses, churches, St. Paul's, the Tower, the Monument, the Custom-House, the shipping, the river, and the bridge that spanned it. We made our dock in the Thames at an early hour, before I was dressed for landing, and by the time I had hurried upon deck to cast the first eager glance around, the fog had descended, shutting all things from view. A big, looming something was receding as I gained the top of the companion-ladder, and faded altogether before I could attach to it any distinct idea. But the great heart of the city was beating, and where I stood its throbbing was distinctly audible. A hum, in which all sounds were blended, a confused roar of the human ocean that rolled around me, fell with strange effect upon my ear, accustomed for nearly five weeks only to the noises peculiar to shipboard.
Certainly the fog did not afford me a cheering welcome. It was denser and dirtier than the fogs we had encountered off the banks of Newfoundland, and more chilling and disagreeable to the human frame. It did not disperse the whole day. What with the difficulty that attended our landing, and the long delay consequent upon the very dilatory movements of the Custom-House officers, the night had fairly closed in—it did not add much to the darkness—before I was en route to an hotel. A Scotch